


Dearness Only

by Seascribe



Category: due South
Genre: Christmas, Dogs, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every year, Ben asks for a dog for Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dearness Only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



> I think this is canon-compliant, at least as much as anything can be with this show. Let me know if I've missed something! Also, the book _Stone Fox_ wasn't published until 1980. I have chosen to reject this reality and substitute my own in which it was published early enough that Fraser could have been familiar with it before his mother died. It was Keerawa who brought _Le Petit Prince_ to my mind.

*  
When Ben was four, his mother had brought down a box of her special letter paper and helped him to write a letter so that Santa would know what to bring for him that year. She let him use her inkpen, which was heavy and slick in his hand, nothing like the flimsy pencils he used to practice his letters in his big book. Ben knew that it would be rude to start off his letter with just asking for what he wanted, and so he scratched out a laborious _How are you?_ He thought to ask about all of the reindeer because he memorised them from the poem, but he didn't know how to spell their names or _reindeer_ , and so he settled instead for, "I hope you are well," the way Grandma Pinsent wrote in her letters to Ben. 

_For Christmas,_ Ben continued, and Mum took his hand in hers so that he didn't make any mistakes spelling the long, unfamiliar word, _I would like a..._

"Mum, how do you spell puppy?" 

"Isn't there something else you'd like to ask for first?" Mum said. The narrow little line that sometimes showed up between her eyebrows when it snowed for days and days and Dad was gone and Ben had too much energy to sit still showed up for just a second, but then was gone so fast Ben wondered if maybe he imagined it. "A new truck, or another story book?" 

Ben chewed on his lip. Those things would be great, but he had two trucks and his story book was big, with a lot of stories in it that were still too hard for him to read. It would probably last another year, or at least until his birthday. Better only to ask for the puppy, so that Santa wouldn't think he was greedy. 

He explained that to Mum, who smiled, but not like she was really happy, and helped him write the word, the tails on her p's and y prettier and loopier than Ben's jagged scrawl. 

"I'm going to call him Searchlight," Ben said. "Like in the book. And when he's big enough, he can be my lead dog when I learn to drive, like Dad and Mr Gerrard!" 

"Puppies are harder for Santa to find than trucks and new coats," Mum said. She kissed Ben's forehead. "He might not be able to bring one for you this year. But I'm sure he'll do his best." 

Ben thanked Santa kindly for reading his letter and signed his name with the flourish he had been practicing. 

On Christmas morning, there were three neatly wrapped parcels under the tree: a new coat, an enormous box of colouring crayons, and a pair of ice skates. Ben liked all of them--especially the skates--but there was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was nowhere a puppy could have been hiding, and even though Dad was supposed to be there for Christmas breakfast, Ben didn't think the reason he was late was because he was arranging with Santa to pick up Ben's new puppy. 

He asked Mum, just to be sure. "I don't think so, honey," she said. 

Maybe, Ben thought hopefully, Santa would be able to find one before next year and bring it to him then. Or maybe Mum and Dad would find one for his birthday. But he decided not to ask just yet. If he didn't ask, then no one could say "I don't think so" in the way that really meant "no" and Ben could still hope. 

When Dad came home that afternoon, he brought Ben a little leather bag with shredded up bark and a rock and piece of metal inside of it. 

"It won't be long til he's old enough to learn to make his own campfire," Dad said, when Mum made a face at him. "Isn't that right, Benton?" 

Ben would rather have had a new truck, but when he went to bed that night, he put the bag carefully away in his dresser and fell asleep imagining sitting by a fire that he started by himself, with his dog by his side, warm and content together out in the snow. 

*  
When Ben sat down with Mum to write his letter to Santa the next year, he made sure it was clear that, while he really wanted a puppy, a hockey stick or a book about cowboys would be the next best substitutions. He got both, and still no puppy. When Dad came home on New Year's Eve, he had forgotten to bring Ben a gift and was driving Mr Gerrard's sled. Ben was worried about Feist and Clara and the rest of Dad's team, but Dad didn't want to talk about it. 

"We'll have to train a new lead dog," Dad said. "Do you think you can help me with that?" 

Ben nodded enthusiastically, standing up as tall as he could. It wasn't the same as getting a puppy, but it was a start. Dad would see how hard Ben could work, and maybe he would decide it was time for Ben to start training a lead dog of his own.

*  
When Ben was six, he didn't write a letter to Santa. He was old enough now to do it without Mum's help, but Ben figured that if Santa couldn't even manage to find him a puppy in two whole years, then asking him to bring Mum back from Heaven was a waste of paper and ink. There wasn't really anything else that Ben wanted badly enough to ask for it. 

The book from his grandparents, with cramped old-fashioned print and not a single picture, wasn't entirely unexpected. By then, Ben knew better than to complain that he would rather have had a set of Linkin Logs or at least a book with pictures. He read the book dutifully while he waited for the sun to come back up, and sometimes he drew his own pictures to go with the stories, Theseus running from the Minotaur in the maze, Icarus soaring skywards, Phaëthon and the chariot of the sun. His grandmother pinned that one up in the kitchen.

Ben finished the book on the day the sun came up. He rushed through the last ten pages so he would have plenty of time to put on his outdoor clothes to go to the party that his grandmother had told him was held every year, with fireworks and bonfires and food. All morning, the intermittent bangs of over-eager amateur pyrotechnics operators had been going off overhead, interrupting Ben's reading. 

It wasn't far enough into town to need a sledteam or snowmobile, and so most of the brief daylight was waning by the time Ben and his grandparents joined the crowd around the roaring bonfire. Ben saw a handful of children about his age stockpiling snowballs and ran over to see if either side needed an extra man. He didn't have the best aim, but he could pack snowballs fast enough that quantity almost made up for it. 

The game lasted until it was too dark to see, and Ben followed his new friends back to the bonfire for mugs of hot cocoa. 

"You must be George and Martha's grandson," Peter's mum said, and she put an extra handful of marshmallows into Ben's mug. Ben thanked her and ducked away before she could start patting his head or telling him what a brave, strong boy he was.

Over on the other side of the fire, Peter and his older sister Jeannie were bent over a basket. 

"Ursula just whelped her first litter," Jeannie explained to Ben, offering an enthusiastically wriggling puppy for him to pet. "Dad's trying to sell most of them." Ben put his mug down in the snow, slopping hot chocolate everywhere in his haste to hold out his arms to take the pup. It licked his cheek, and Ben giggled. 

"You'd be a good leader, wouldn't you?" he whispered to it. "I know you would."

"He likes you!" Jeannie declared, as the puppy yipped in what sounded like agreement and licked Ben's face again. "You should ask your grandparents to let you have him."

"Yeah," Ben said, thrilled and terrified by the prospect. "Yeah, I will!" He squeezed the puppy close for a second, trying to gather his courage, before putting it back into the basket with its brothers and sisters and going to find his grandparents. 

"Time to go home, Benton," his grandfather said. "Go and help your grandmother gather up her dishes." 

"Wait," Ben blurted. "Jeannie's got a litter of puppies--I mean, her dad does--and he's trying to sell them, so I thought that maybe--" His grandfather was already shaking his head, but Ben couldn't stop. "I'd train him, like a real lead dog, and keep everything clean, and I can come into town to get his food, I'll do extra chores to pay for it..." But he knew it was a lost cause. He trailed off into a miserable silence. 

"There's no room for a dog, with the library," his grandfather said. "And he wouldn't like all of the travelling."

"I won't either!" Ben cried out, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. "It isn't _fair_." The other kids had dogs and got toys for Christmas. None of their mothers had gone to heaven and were never coming back, and none of them had to move every two or three years.

"You'll find that very little in this life is," his grandfather said. "Don't sulk, Benton. You're too old for that." And Ben knew he was right, so he lifted his chin off his chest, standing up as straight and tall as he could. The back of his throat ached, the way it did when he thought about Mum and how she'd never be there to tuck him in at night again. But he'd stopped himself from crying about that months ago, even though he was still sad and angry, and he wouldn't cry now.

"Maybe in the spring we'll see about getting a cat," his grandfather continued, a little awkwardly. 

"I don't want a cat," Ben said, with all the dignity he could manage, and went to say goodbye to Jeannie and Peter.

The puppy put its front paws up on the basket's rim when Ben came back, and he knelt down to press his face against its soft, musky-smelling fur. It made a little happy, whimpering noise and tried to twist around to lick him. 

"I can't take you home right now," Ben said, a few rebellious tears creeping out to soak into the puppy's coat. "But maybe in the spring." Maybe he could build a kennel for the pup, so that it wouldn't get in the way of the library, and when they had to move, at least they would have each other. 

"Dad says we can keep two of them," Jeannie said. "You could come visit us and play with him." She smiled at Ben encouragingly. 

Ben wasn't sure that he could stand the heartbreak of only being able to visit, and always having to leave alone, but he liked Peter and Jeannie, and she was trying hard to be nice. So he smiled back, even though it made his face hurt, and promised that he would come as soon as the days were long enough. 

That night, Ben's grandmother sat by his bed and read aloud to him. She hadn't done that in months, not since Ben first came to stay, but now she pulled down _Le Petit Prince_ from the shelf and read page after page, while Ben lay under his blanket and let the half-understood words wash over him. 

" _On se console toujours,_ " his grandmother repeated, closing the book and putting it away. "This too shall pass, Benton." 

Ben closed his eyes and tried to believe that long enough to fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Thomas Paine, whom Fraser quotes in One Good Man, and I picked it when I thought that the story ended with Ben finally getting his dog. But that didn't happen, as hard as I tried, and so I guess it refers to Diefenbaker.


End file.
